Mozilla Labs Game On competition pushes open web tech

Mozilla Labs has kicked off a competition this week called Game On 2010. It’s main purpose is to get a load of developers producing games using just open web technologies. That means HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, but not Flash. Server side code such as PHP, Python, Ruby and Java are all acceptable too.

The competition is open to everyone and there are no guidelines for what type of game to produce. The only prerequisite is open web tech use. Game On runs until January 11, 2011 and judging will use the following criteria:

Open Web-iness – Does your game showcase the power of open Web technologies?

Aesthetics – How good is the visual design and interaction experience?

Originality – How innovative and unique is the idea and execution?

Polish – How “production-ready” is the game?

Fun – Is the game offering an experience you want to return to again and again?

Rather than giving guidelines for game type the judges intend to split the games up into categories and let them compete against similar entries. Judging will include the community as well as an expert panel.

The winenrs will be announced on January 30 woth prizes being awarded in the following categories:

Best Overall – the best overall score

Best Technology – the highest technology score

Best Web-iness – the highest web-iness score

Best Aesthetics – the highest aesthetics score

Most Original – the highest originality score

Best Polish – the highest polish score

Most Fun – the highest fun score

Community Choice– the entry with the highest official average score

There will also be a Grand Prize that includes a trip to the Indie Game Developer Conference, a visit to Mozilla in Mountain View, lots of Mozilla swag, and promotion of your game via the Game-On Gallery.

There’s a lot of talk at the moment of how Flash could be replaced on the web in the near to mid-future. HTML 5 is a big talking point and now Mozilla is giving developers a chance and an incentive to pursue non-Flash gaming.

What will come out of this competition is a range of top-quality games that prove gaming on the web is viable without any plug-ins. It should also create a wealth of new information for other developers to learn from and explore such things as the HTML 5 canvas element, and JavaScript for gaming in more detail.

Mozilla in return will get free promotion, they’ll push to advertise Firefox 4, and there’s a good chance game developers will stick around and keep developing open web games which work with Mozilla’s browser. The costs to the company are also minimal making this a win-win for everyone who takes part.